Bittersweet

If you’ve tasted Sweet ‘n’ Low, the tabletop sweetener, straight from its pink packet, it’s a miracle. In flavor, it is sweet to the tongue; for the weight-conscious, it is free of calories; and metaphorically, it represents the essence of American innovation, a microcosm of the imaginative spirit of invention. But following the sugary taste is something unpleasant and bitter. Rich Cohen’s new memoir-slash-family-biography, Sweet and Low, is like sweetener itself: clean and syrupy, but with an acrid, vile aftertaste.

The first thing to know here is that Cohen’s grandfather, Benjamin Eisenstadt, invented Sweet ‘n’ Low. One assumes Cohen and his family would be due a huge fortune, but his grandmother disinherited his side of the family. Cohen is faced with a challenge as a memoirist: how to offer a paean to his forebear’s innovations and business acumen, while writing honestly about the business failings and corruptions of the company, while, further, knowing all along that the fortune will never be his. This authorial balance makes Sweet and Low a riveting, brutal account of the dissolution of his family tree.

Cohen starts by tracing the family history in Brooklyn. He follows the early years of his grandparents and the start of their successful company, Cumberland Packing, which originally packaged sugar, itself a huge innovation. Riches came when they invented the chemical compound that became Sweet ‘n’ Low. With that, the sugar industry transformed and the Eisenstadts became a modern success story.

The operations were gradually taken over by Cohen’s uncle Marvin, also known as Uncle Marvelous. The company continued to thrive, but was soon infiltrated by mob-influenced contractors and tradesmen. These men were able to bilk the company of millions of dollars and set up comfortable lives in the Long Island suburbs. Criminal activity was suspected, though, and charges were brought against the company for tax evasion and fraud. Accusations also flew about political influence and how the saccharin ban (which enabled Sweet ‘n’ Low’s continued success) was lifted. While Marvin, nor Benjamin for that matter, were implicated or given prison time, Sweet ‘n’ Low’s image became irreversibly tarnished. The product was then overcome in the industry by Equal and NutraSweet, though it is still a highly profitable enterprise.

In gathering these key points to the Sweet ‘n’ Low story, Cohen becomes archaeologist into his own ancestry, delving deep into court documents and interviewing key members of his family. He combs through documents and finds revealing truths and half-truths about the characters of all involved here, particularly uncle Marvin (whom Cohen distrusts immensely), his grandparents, and his grandmother’s eventual keeper, her daughter. He views these subjects (his family) from a distance, and this enables him to study them, as they are, in their complicated, ugly glory.

Parallel to this research, Cohen stretches out into Big History territory. He writes short histories on sugar, the Brooklyn Navy Yards, the diet craze, Guyland, and early-century industrial Brooklyn. But truly interesting are the provided short histories of saccharin and aspartame. He summarizes how these products were brought to market and outlines the intricate dance between the law and politics that enables certain products to come to market.

But Cohen has been criticized for the diversions of these Big Ideas. They serve a strong purpose, however. They allow him to take a breath, to let his anger and disappointment—always bubbling under the surface—to subside, and to put events in perspective. For the reader, this is a good thing, as his insights and research are thoroughly relevant. Through these digressions, Cohen is able to unstick himself from the syrupy mess of the Cumberland Packing family story, a fact crucial to his retaining authorial distance.

What would this book have been like if he had simply focused on the family? One would guess it would have veered into bitterness and revenge. But in Cohen’s final version, the digressions into American history give the book latitude.

Ultimately, Cohen is not angry. He states in the preface “to be disinherited is to be set free.” Although Cumberland Packing (which also packages Sugar in the Raw) is worth at least $100 million, Cohen seems relieved to not have to bear the burden of the company. He can be satisfied that he has written an unflinching and at times devastating account of his immediate family and the character flaws that lead to its ruinous destruction. Freed to write, his book is his substitute for the sickly sweet stereotypes of the American family dream. It is a family history with numerous observation points, but by the book’s end there is only one perspective that matters: that of the author, the shaper of history. This point of view may outlive the sugar substitute that created all the problems in the first place.